Published by HarperCollins
Age Group: Adult
Format: Comic Book
Genres and Categories: Fantasy, Action, Asexual Characters, Asian Characters, Brown Characters, Gay Characters, OwnVoices Representation, Queer Characters, Asian Authors, Asian History, Cats, Spirits, Winged Serpents, Witches, Curses, Various Magic, Diverse Representation, Magic Users, Royalty Characters, Villain Characters
Series: Obsidian Throne #1
My Rating:
Published on: 27th March 2025
Pages: 384
Buy this Book! Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Blackwells / Forbidden Planet / Bookshop.org US / Bookshop.org UK / Waterstones
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WELCOME TO THE RAN EMPIRE.
Where winged serpents fly through the skies.
Giant leopards prowl the earth.
And witches burn blue as they die.
A prince born into violence
Prince Ashoka is considered an outcast for opposing his father Emperor Adil Maurya’s brutal destruction of the Mayakari witches.
A witch seeking revenge
Shakti vows retribution for the murder of her aunt and annihilation of her village at the hands of the emperor, even though she is bound by the Mayakari’s pacifist code.
A curse that will change the world
In her anger Shakti casts a violent curse, the consequences of which will leave both her and Ashoka grappling for power. Do they take it for themselves and risk becoming what they most hate? Or do they risk losing power completely as the world around them is destroyed?
Drawing on inspiration from the Mauryan Empire of Ancient India, debut author Maithree Wijesekara plunges readers into the first amazing book of the Obsidian Throne trilogy.
This book was provided for free by Black Crow PR and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!
Content Warnings:
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The Prince Without Sorrow Review
I’m not going to lie, I picked up The Prince Without Sorrow by Maithree Wijesekara mainly due to its gorgeous cover. The vibes it was giving, plus the synopsis, suggested that this would be my kind of read. Unfortunately it just didn’t live up to my expectations. While the world-building and magic system of the mayakari (witches) were interesting in concept they were not executed well. I understand what Wijesekara was trying to do with the code that mayakari live by, however, all it does is place too many limitations on them.
It isn’t specifically mentioned that Shakti is the first to take action against their persecutors, but it is heavily implied that mayakari do not cast curses, and do not fight back. I just didn’t find it believable that everyone else upheld their code throughout the vicious persecution of their people for generations.
The Prince Without Sorrow is listed as a romantasy on GoodReads, and this is very misleading. The synopsis refers to romantic angst and that is a more accurate description. There is a huge amount of romantic tension between Prince Ashoka and his guard, Rahil, but that is all it is. Nothing comes of the relationship in this book, and from a comment made by Shakti about not feeling romantic love it appears that Shakti is asexual.
The storyline of The Prince Without Sorrow was not terrible, yet it did not grip me and I found the concluding events to be less than satisfactory. The decisions made by some of the characters felt quite stereotypical, and my already limited interest in the characters disappeared. This book had a lot of potential and it just did not reach it.
Despite these issues, I’ve given this book a three star rating for several reasons. While The Prince Without Sorrow did not work for me, I’ve read worse books and I didn’t struggle to finish it. I just felt underwhelmed when I did and this isn’t a series I intend to continue reading.
About Maithree Wijesekara
Maithree Wijesekara is an Australian-Sri Lankan writer based in Melbourne. Graduating with a Master’s degree in Dentistry in 2021, she splits her time between telling people to please brush their teeth, and writing stories inspired by the fantastical and the real world. When she isn’t writing, you can find her attempting to finish her never-ending TBR pile and ingesting unhealthy amounts of coffee. If given the chance, she will slip in a mention of her dearly departed Labrador during conversation.
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